March 17, 2009

urban renewal

Since the new year, the blog-waves have been full of punditry on stimulus spending, infrastructure, and urbanism. Now. I'm weighing in with Architect magazine's March cover story, Urban Renewal. I wasn't content to just ruminate on the issues or grouse about lame shovel-ready projects, instead I looked to four practices with both visions and realities for our cities, suburbs, and that space in-between. The feature grew out of the desire to counter what was looking to be urban policies heavily weighted with New Urbanist thinking. Clearly, there had to be some new urbanists out there who aren't New Urbanists. The result is a diverse group. cityLAB, Interboro Partners, Fletcher Studio, and Terreform ONE represent four different approaches to what's next for urbanism, from the everyday to the ecological to futuristic.The administration should take note.

Here's a bit:

Stumping in Toledo, Ohio, last August, Obama was handed a copy of Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities by an audience member. The exchange sparked the candidate to give a nuanced explanation of the relationship between cities and suburbs.

"The research has shown that if you want a thriving suburban area, then you better have a thriving city. If you want a state as a whole to do well, then the metropolitan areas in that state have to do well," Obama said. "There is no separation. It is all linked together. We have to get past this notion that we can just leave the cities to rot, because your economy will rot. We want to work to revitalize cities, to diversify their economy."

The new administration's emphasis on urbanism, combined with unprecedented infrastructure spending and the appointment of a "green dream team" to tackle climate change issues, has raised hopes for architects and urban designers. "The stimulus package could be really exciting, and everyone has something riding on it, and some of us around here are feeling that we are at a tipping point to connecting our urban policies to some trends we've been seeing—to more compact development, focus on the center, quality of life, and sustainability," says Philip Myrick , vice president of the New York–based nonprofit Project for Public Spaces.

But Myrick's optimism is cautious. In the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed into law on Feb. 17, total infrastructure accounts for just a fraction, with $47 billion going to a combination of transit, rail, roads, and bridges. Highway investments dominate the allotment. Is this the way to jump-start cities? "We need to put a more efficient, less sprawling, less car-dependent infrastructure on the table, but I really don't see it in the package," Myrick warns. "My fear is that rather than changing the way we live in a profound way, which is what we need to do, that we will wind up replacing one technology with another, that we will still live in this land-gobbling way."

Myrick stresses a commitment to "soft infrastructure," the social spots where we live and work: parks, downtowns, public spaces. "These places are vital to our public heath and to the success of cities," he explains. "It's what makes them sustainable and what makes them better. There is very little awareness that creating those vital spaces in the public realm is a critical bottom line of any stimulus package."

With the Office of Urban Affairs and the stimulus package, the new administration is sending a mixed message: Yes, we are committed to re-envisioning cities, and yes, transportation and infrastructure remain status quo. This leads to questions: What model will the next urbanism take? And who will design it?